A present-day ghost leads China Bayles to a secret from Pecan Springs’s past in this haunting mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert. While helping Ruby Wilcox clean up the loft above their shops, China comes upon a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs. Following the discovery, she hears a woman humming an old Scottish ballad and smells the delicate scent of lavender.… Soon, strange happenings start to occur in Thyme and Seasons. When a customer sees a mysterious woman picking flowers nearby and then suddenly disappearing, China must finally admit what Ruby has always known—their building is haunted. But by whom? As China investigates, the tragic story of a woman in one of the old photographs unfolds. China delves into the century-old mystery and realizes that solving it could have unimaginable repercussions in the here and now. Praise for Susan Wittig Albert's  New York Times  Bestselling China Bayles Mysteries "Engrossing...China continues to appeal with her herbal information and savvy sleuthing."-- Booklist (starred review) "[Albert] consistently turns out some of the best-plotted mysteries on the market."-- Houston Chronicle  "One of the best-written and [most] well-plotted mysteries I've read in a long time."-- Los Angeles Times "Mystery lovers...will be captivated by this unique series."-- Seattle Post-Intelligencer "Engrossing."-- The Times-Picayune Susan Wittig Albert grew up on a farm in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. A former professor of English and a university administrator and vice president, she is the New York Times bestselling author of the China Bayles Mysteries, the Darling Dahlias Mysteries, and the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. She and her husband, Bill, coauthor a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries under the name Robin Paige. The Alberts live near Austin, Texas. Chapter One Queen Anne's lace (Daucus carota, aka wild carrot) traveled to America from Europe and hopscotched across the continent with a recklessly joyful abandon. Some herbalists speculate that its use as a morning-after contraceptive made Queen Anne's lace a valuable must-have herb for pioneer women, so they made sure to carry the seeds with them wherever they went. With this in mind, I suppose it's no surprise that we find this plant growing everywhere-along roads and in ditches, in farmers' fields and urban backyards. Queen Anne's lace earned its common name from the lacelike delicacy of its doily-shaped white blossoms, each of which is centered with a single, tiny bloodred flower. "Anne's Flower" China Bayles Pecan Springs Enterprise I love Mondays. I really do. Thyme and Seasons is closed on Monday and I can slop around in my grubbiest jeans and T-shirt, doing all the housekeeping I can't do when customers are asking for my attention every few minutes. On Monday, there's time to appreciate the old stone walls, the well-worn wooden floors, and the beamed ceilings that create a lovely setting for my herbal wares. I can dust the antique hutch and wooden shelves stocked with herbal vinegars, oils, jellies, and teas. I can rearrange the books in the bookshelf and tidy up the old pine cupboard that displays bath herbs, herbal soaps and shampoos, fragrances, and massage oils. I can restock the wooden rack that holds the bottles of extracts and tinctures and the large glass jars of dried culinary and medicinal herbs. I can rearrange the wreaths and swags on the walls and reorganize the buckets of fragrant potpourri in the corners, as well as tall stalks of dried sunflowers, baskets of dried Queen Anne's lace, Silver King artemisia, yarrow, and tansy. And when the weather's good, I can work outdoors in the herb gardens around the shop and replenish the shelves of potted herbs for sale-basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, chives-outside my front door. No offense to my friends and customers: I enjoy you, and if I want to stay in the herb business, I need you. But if I were Queen of the World, it would be Monday all week long. This particular August Monday was hot and steamy, so I worked outdoors for less than an hour, pulling weeds, trimming plants, and cutting some parsley, thyme, and rosemary for the tearoom kitchen. Then I cooled off with a little dusting and tidying-up and planned to spend the rest of the morning peeking at my monthly income and expense reports, reviewing the tearoom menus that Ruby and Cass had proposed for the next couple of weeks, checking out a couple of things on the website, and looking over the handouts for September's classes on wreath-making. Lovely things. Lovely Monday things. With this in mind, I took my laptop to the counter and sat down on my stool. Khat-our shop Siamese and quite an autocratic creature-jumped up beside me, placing a proprietary paw on the computer keyboard and watching with interest while I pulled up the previous month's financial data. I didn'